It's That Time of Year Again

Christmas is upon us here in the Southeastern US, and even the weather is in agreement. We have completed the decorating with the exception of putting up Christmas cards as they arrive over one of the doors.

I have done the majority of the decorating on my own this year (even had to get the tree alone) because J has been gone a lot the last few weeks. He will really only be back for good a few days before we leave for our holiday trip to the west coast...so it is on me or it won't get done. Anyhow, he did put up the lights along the gutter in the front of our house before he left, and then one occasion when he was able to pop in for a day, he helped me set the tree up in the stand.

For the last 4 years, we have used this little tree my friend gave me that she bought at the Makeman store in Japan. It is about 30 inches tall and suited our needs well due to our living situation at the time. I have it set up on our buffet in our dining room this year. We wanted to do a real tree this year as well, so I got a 6-7 foot Douglas Fir set up in our family room (which is why I needed his help). I am afraid it might dry out while we are gone, but I am hoping to convince a friend to come over and check on it periodically...

Every year, we get a new ornament to mark that year with, and this year, I found a perfect one, but because we had so much more tree to cover this year, I went about getting a few others to add to the tree (although none of them will be the official new ornament). I also had to get a topper and decided to go with a lighted star I found. It looks really nice.

I am currently in the middle of finals week for school and scrambling to get shopping, shipping and card manufacturing done as well, so I will post pics of all the good stuff in a few days, when I come up for air.